Post heart attack care key to survival

Following doctor’s orders after being discharged from the hospital can be more critical than most people realize, particularly with heart attack patients. A new study from the University of Leeds in the U.K. found that people who suffered a heart attack were much more likely to die after leaving the hospital if they neglected even one step of their post-discharge care.

Published in the European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care, researchers looked at nine aspects of post-discharge care for heart attack survival, including cardiac rehabilitation, electrocardiogram, use of aspirin, reperfusion (restoring blood flow to the heart), and timely use of heart attack prevention medications.

The study findings showed heart attack patients have a 46 percent increased chance of dying within a month and 74 percent increased chance of dying within a year if one of these components is missing. They discovered about half of 31,000 heart attack patients in England and Wales left out one of these elements of care between 2007 and 2010.

They also found hospitals that did not have as much experience treating heart attack patients or had fewer specialist beds had a higher risk of missing opportunities to deliver appropriate care. For example, hospitals with no beds for cardiology patients missed care opportunities by 11 percent more than hospitals that had 50 or more cardiology beds.

Researchers stressed the need for doctors to communicate that the entire post-discharge package is essential for maintaining post-heart attack health.

American waistlines keep growing

There’s now scientific evidence to back up the notion that Americans are developing bigger waistlines. According to a new study, published in JAMA, the average waist circumference in the U.S. grew by an inch between 1999 and 2012.

These findings contradict previous data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) which found that no major changes in obesity occurred between 2003 and 2012. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researchers used the same survey as a source, but determined that the average waist size expanded from 37.6 inches at the beginning of the study to 38.8 inches at the end.

Using seven different two-year cycles of NHANES data, researchers analyzed 32,816 men and non-pregnant women ages 20 and older. Abdominal obesity, defined as a waist circumference larger than 40.2 inches for men and larger than 34.6 inches for women, increased overall from 46.4 percent to 54.2 percent. Men had a 0.8-inch waist circumference increase and 6.4 percent abdominal obesity increase overall. Women had a 1.5-inch waist circumference increase and 9.3 percent abdominal obesity increase overall.

Non-Hispanic white people had an increase of 8 percent in abdominal obesity, non-Hispanic black people had an increase of 8.5 percent and Mexican-Americans had an increase of 9,3 percent.

While it’s not clear why this increase is happening, the researchers recommended doctors continue to measure waist circumference as a measure to preventing and managing obesity in patients. Eating healthy, portion control and regular exercise can help reduce abdominal obesity.